The present invention relates to decontamination formulations for neutralization of toxic industrial chemicals, and methods of making and using same.
Recent attention has focused on responding to terrorist events involving Chemical and Biological Warfare (CBW) agents. Our recent work on the development of DF-100 and DF-200 Sandia decontamination technologies (e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,566,574 and 6,273,890, which are herein incorporated by reference) has successfully addressed biological toxins (e.g., Ricin and botulism), biological pathogens (e.g., anthrax and plague) and chemical warfare agents that have been traditionally developed for military use (e.g., Sarin, VX, and Mustard). However, a more likely scenario would be for terrorists to steal readily available toxic industrial chemicals (TICs) such as anhydrous ammonia, phosgene, hydrogen cyanide, and chlorine gas for use as chemical agents. This avoids difficulties such as producing highly toxic chemical warfare agents in a safe manner, the acquisition of pre-cursors for chemical agents that are closely monitored, and the direct handling of the agents during dissemination. In fact, the FBI considers and the direct handling of the agents during dissemination. In fact, the FBI considers the use of TICs by terrorists to be more likely than the use of the traditional military-type CBW agents.
Rapid decontamination of toxic industrial chemicals (TICs), in both the liquid and gaseous phases, presents a considerable technical challenge because not all TICs are the same and therefore represent a set of chemicals that have vastly different properties. Some TICs, for example, are highly water-soluble (e.g., sulfur dioxide); while others are only sparingly soluble (e.g., malathion). Others must be neutralized by chemical oxidation (e.g., sulfur dioxide) or nucleophilic attack (e.g., malathion). Still others must be neutralized by chemical reduction (e.g., chlorine).
Development of a broad decontamination technology enhances the USA's ability for dealing with the top six terrorist WMD threats identified by the FBI. In order, these are: biological toxins, TICs, biological pathogens, radionuclides, chemical warfare agents, and nuclear weapons. The technology will have broad market appeal beyond anti-terrorism efforts since it could also be routinely used for non-terrorist events, such as accidental HazMat spills and releases, etc.
Against this background, the present invention was developed.